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00:00Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Happy to have you here on MS Now.
00:03So who is in charge of the U.S. Navy? Constitutionally speaking, as you know,
00:10we have civilian control of the Navy and of all the other branches of the armed services.
00:16So, you know, it's a civilian who's in charge of the U.S. Navy. Do you know who the civilian
00:20is who Trump put in charge of the Navy? One hint is that he's a man who never served in
00:29the Navy.
00:30Never served in the military at all. He has no known previous relationship of any kind
00:35with the Navy or with the U.S. military at all. Indeed, he was not known to have ever even
00:40shown
00:41any interest in the Navy or the U.S. military whatsoever before Donald Trump made him secretary
00:47of the Navy. Why did Donald Trump put this guy in charge of it? I don't know. What the guy
00:54does
00:55know a lot about, what at least he is known for in the world, is his art collection. His name
01:04is
01:04John Phelan, P-H-E-L-A-N, Phelan. That's him on the left with his wife. Mr. Phelan is
01:11an art
01:11collector and finance guy who Donald Trump put in charge of the United States Navy for some reason.
01:18Now, is his art collecting itself perhaps Navy related? Like, is he into paintings of ships
01:25or famous naval battles of the 19th century? No, nothing like that. In fact, it's kind of a funny
01:32story. Around the time that Trump named John Phelan to be secretary of the Navy, the art world
01:37press kind of awkwardly tried to sum up John Phelan's tastes in art. They tried to describe
01:48for the non-art world public, who's just hearing about this guy for the first time, they tried to
01:53describe what John Phelan was known for in the art world in case anybody was curious as to why Donald
01:59Trump might have landed on him, in particular for the job of Navy secretary. A number of art world
02:06publications eventually sort of settled on what I guess is a representative quote, an existing quote
02:13from a former executive at Sotheby's describing the art tastes of Trump's new Navy secretary.
02:21She described his tastes as, quote, a celebration of the sexual side of life.
02:29Uh, the publication ArtNet published, um, photos of some of his collection in situ at one of his
02:35homes, photos that I cannot show you on TV. Um, other, other art world publications described,
02:44um, for example, a video art installation at one of his homes, which is just all Playboy centerfolds.
02:51There's also famously the floor at his like $38 million mansion in Aspen, Colorado. In an interview
03:00with the, um, art newspaper.com, Trump's Navy secretary, John Phelan, his, his wife was asked
03:07by that publication, quote, what is the most surprising place you have displayed a work?
03:12And she answered, quote, in the living room of our Aspen home, we have a mirrored floor. It covers the
03:20entire space. It is amazing to see people's reactions at parties when they realize what you
03:26can see in the floor, naughty and nice, end quote. Um, that Aspen home with the mirrored floor, that is
03:37where, uh, John Phelan hosted a gazillion dollar fundraiser for candidate Donald Trump in August,
03:432024. That fundraiser made news because it was one of the times Trump stated his made up claim that
03:48prisons in the Congo were releasing all their murderers in order to ship them to the United
03:54States. Um, he told that tall tale at the house with the quote, naughty surprise mirrored floor,
04:02whose owner Trump soon named to run the United States Navy, despite him having no connection to
04:09the Navy at all. Um, incidentally, that Aspen fundraiser fundraiser was one that Trump flew to
04:15on an airplane that had previously belonged to Jeffrey Epstein, which itself made some headlines
04:23at the time. The campaign said at the time that that was just a coincidence, but you know,
04:29in the course of time, Trump got reelected to the presidency in November of 2024, he really did name
04:36this guy, John Phelan, the rando sexual side of life art collector with a mirrored floor to run the
04:43United States Navy. And Congress really did force Trump's justice department to release at least some
04:50of the government's files on Trump's friend, the late convicted pedophile and child sex trafficker,
04:56Jeffrey Epstein. And perhaps inevitably among the revelations in the Epstein files
05:02was this headline, John Phelan, Trump's Navy secretary listed in Epstein flight logs.
05:11John Phelan, the billionaire art collector whom president Donald Trump appointed to oversee the
05:15U S Navy appears to have traveled on at least two transatlantic flights with Jeffrey Epstein.
05:20The flight manifests list Epstein, Phelan, and a handful of other men, including Jean-Luc Brunel,
05:26a French model scout who was accused of rape during the 1990s and later of providing girls to
05:33Jeffrey Epstein. Brunel was found dead in his jail cell in France in 2022 after being charged in a
05:39related case. Authorities ruled it death by suicide. Epstein's aircraft was nicknamed the quote Lolita
05:45Express because, as some of Epstein's accusers have said, he frequently had young women and girls aboard the
05:53plane to entertain his guests. CNN was first to report on Navy Secretary John Phelan's flights with
06:02Jeffrey Epstein. They also published this flight log from the Epstein files where you can see the Navy
06:07secretary's name listed there. He's number nine on the flight manifest. Nobody has claimed there were
06:14definitely any young women on board this plane or girls on board this plane, but we don't know who
06:20the other six people are whose names are redacted from this flight manifest for whatever reason.
06:25Why were those people having their names redacted? MS now contacted the U S Navy about John Phelan's
06:33connections to Jeffrey Epstein and Phelan's time on board Epstein's plane. The Navy is offering no comment.
06:43But today was the first day that members of Congress were allowed under very strict conditions to
06:48physically go to the Justice Department where they were allowed to see unredacted versions of
06:53some Epstein documents. Judging by the reaction from members of Congress like Jamie Raskin, who took
06:59advantage of this opportunity today, members of Congress today seem just as frustrated as ever
07:05about what the Trump administration is doing and continues to do with all this Epstein-related
07:10material. There were to be no redactions in order to spare people embarrassment or political
07:22disgrace. We didn't want there to be a cover up. And yet what I saw today was that there were
07:30lots of
07:31examples of people's names being redacted when they were not victims. And so we still haven't gotten from the DOJ,
07:42their privilege log explaining why certain redactions were made. But I can tell you that I saw a whole bunch
07:49of
07:49them that seemed very suspicious and baffling to me. Donald Trump's name was redacted in a number of different
08:00different places. And I saw one conversation between Epstein lawyers and Trump lawyers relating to the 2009
08:16investigation, which had been redacted. And I don't see any particular reason that it should have been. Donald Trump's name
08:24is all
08:24over these files, all over it. I mean, thousands and thousands of times. One thing that came out in the
08:31release last month was a bunch of tips from through the tip line, including about President Trump and potentially with
08:39a 13 year old girl. Did you get to see any of the, how those tips were investigated? Did you
08:44feel comfortable about them being dismissed?
08:46I saw nothing about that. Um, but if you spend any real time with these files, you will see references
08:54to, uh, 17 year old girls, 16 year old girls, 14 year old girls, 11 year old girls, 10 year
09:01old girls. And I saw a reference today to a nine year old girl. So is a really gruesome and
09:09grim story. And, uh, I think in order to see our way through this and to try to make progress
09:16on criminal investigation and prosecution and some kind of social redemption from this whole nightmare, we need to listen to
09:24the survivors. A nine year old girl. President Trump is mentioned thousands of times in the files. As Congressman Raskin
09:35said there, um, Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick is also all over the files, including in the files, apparently trying
09:42to negotiate a trip to Epstein's Island. Uh, the top
09:46Republican party donor in the country by far, Elon Musk, he's all over the files, including trying to get Epstein
09:52to invite him to what Musk called his quote, wildest parties. And yes, the Navy secretary, John Phelan is there
10:00as well, flying on Epstein's plane with who knows who, but one of the people on board the plane was
10:06the French modeling scout guy who killed himself in jail when he was charged with Epstein related trafficking crimes.
10:15There's no criminal allegations against any of these men from the Trump administration that I just mentioned, but they're all
10:23still in place in the administration and in Republican politics, at least at this hour.
10:27One guy who did lose his job in this country is the chairman of Paul Weiss, which is a very
10:34fancy, very powerful, very rich New York law firm. That law firm and its previous now chairman, Brad Karp, um,
10:42became very, very famous in the past year as quote, the face of capitulation to Donald Trump in his return
10:50to the White House. Soon after Trump was sworn in for his second term, Trump, you'll recall, uh, started threatening
10:55elite law firms.
10:57With executive orders of dubious legal weight. Brad Karp's law firm, Paul Weiss was one of the firms that was
11:05threatened. And Brad Karp was the guy who immediately rushed to the White House to try to appease Trump, to
11:13have a conversation with Trump about getting his firm off the hook.
11:15The conversation was described as beginning, quote, with a prolonged discussion of gulf. Um, and that may be where it
11:23started, but where it ended was with Brad Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss, promising that his elite law firm,
11:29Paul Weiss, would donate $40 million worth of free legal services to Donald Trump's pet projects.
11:36As a way of trying to appease Trump, as a way of trying to appease Trump, so he wouldn't be
11:40mean to the firm anymore.
11:42And that bootlicking act by the chairman of Paul Weiss, um, cratered the reputation of the Paul Weiss law firm,
11:51probably for all time.
11:52Um, it also set in motion a race to the bottom where more than a half dozen other large, powerful,
11:59rich law firms did exactly the same thing.
12:01Before some of them came to their senses and said, no, actually, what are we doing?
12:06We're going to go to court and challenge these executive orders.
12:09These executive orders with which Trump was threatening these law firms.
12:12All four firms that stood up and challenged Trump in court won those cases and got the executive orders struck
12:18down.
12:21But like I said, following Paul Weiss's lead, there were a bunch of them that didn't go that route.
12:26Paul Weiss and its chairman, Brad Karp, didn't bother to challenge Trump at all.
12:30They just raced to the White House, signed themselves over to him.
12:34Thank you, sir.
12:34May I have another?
12:37Well, Paul Weiss chairman, Brad Karp, who did that, is now no longer the chairman of Paul Weiss.
12:43Um, there was no criminal allegation against him, but Brad Karp has now been ousted at Paul Weiss
12:49because of his appearances in the Epstein files, including his apparent strategizing with Epstein
12:54about efforts to discredit Epstein's victims.
12:59I should tell you that he puts the word victims in scare quotes.
13:02Like, they're not really victims of Epstein who had come forward to say what Epstein had done to them.
13:09Incredibly, Paul Weiss still has not fired Brad Karp.
13:12They've removed him as chairman, and I think they want a lot of credit for doing so,
13:16but they're keeping him on at the firm.
13:18Maybe it's because the radioactive glow coming from Brad Karp's office is so warm,
13:25it allows Paul Weiss to cut down on their heating bills in this cold, cold New York winter.
13:32But you know what?
13:32While we're on the subject of moral catastrophe and what to do about it,
13:37let's talk about the Trump prison camps.
13:41Because if you're Paul Weiss, or if you're Skadden, or you're Kirkland, or you're Latham and Watkins,
13:47you're any of these other big law firms that followed Brad Karp down this road to perdition,
13:53right, that signed an appeasement deal with Trump where you promised him that you'd make your law firm
13:58work for him for free if, please, please, he wouldn't be mean to you.
14:03If you're one of these firms who did that this time last year,
14:08and you've since realized that maybe that was the road to hell,
14:13if you're since realizing that you're going to have to find some way out of that,
14:18you're looking to find your soul in the dark now to salvage something of your reputation
14:23so you don't just have to shut down and change your name and wipe all your resumes
14:27when this dark time is over and the reckoning comes, right?
14:30If you're Paul Weiss or one of these other firms who is trying to find your redemption arc,
14:35that is trying to find a way to redeem yourself and rinse your reputation a little bit,
14:41may I direct your attention to the Trump prison camps?
14:45Because that is the story of 2026.
14:48Because very quietly, Donald Trump in 2026 is trying to build himself a brand new archipelago
14:55of huge new prison camps in the United States, and what do you think he's going to do with them?
15:00The largest capacity federal prison in the United States right now holds about 4,000 people.
15:05Just for context, Trump is trying to build a new network of huge new prison camps
15:09that will each hold 8, 9, 10,000 people.
15:14Two, two and a half times the largest size federal prison in the United States right now.
15:20I mean, but at least in the case of existing federal prisons,
15:23they're at least for people who are convicted of federal crimes, right?
15:27These new huge prison camps that Trump wants to build, they're not for people convicted of crimes.
15:31They're for people picked up by his immigration agents, like by ICE.
15:36He is trying to build huge new capacity to hold more than 100,000 people in these prison camps,
15:43even if they haven't been convicted of or even charged with a crime.
15:50And with what they're doing with ICE already, the existing immigration prisons they've already got,
15:55even before they start building new ones, they're already the stuff of nightmares right now, right?
16:01I mean, the immigrant prison camp, they call it Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas.
16:06They've had three people die there in the last few weeks.
16:09One of them was a man who they said was a suicide, but the county medical examiner,
16:13which got a hold of his body for an autopsy, said, no, no, no, it was not suicide.
16:16It was homicide.
16:17He was asphyxiated to death.
16:19And another one of those deaths, another so-called suicide,
16:22they are now not letting that county medical examiner see that body.
16:26They say they're instead going to send his body to the U.S. military to do the autopsy instead.
16:32They're shunting the autopsy on that one to the William Beaumont Army Medical Center at Fort Bliss,
16:36which conveniently does not release its autopsy reports to the public.
16:42At Camp East Montana, we also have new reports that they have at least two cases of tuberculosis
16:47at that facility as well.
16:50Elsewhere in Texas, in Dilley, Texas, where they're holding men, women and children,
16:55they have nearly tripled the number of people at that facility just since October.
16:59And at that facility in Dilley, Texas, there are now reported measles cases as well.
17:07NBC News has just reported on an 18-month-old girl named Amalia who was healthy
17:12when her family was arrested by Trump's immigration agents in December,
17:17and they were sent to this Dilley prison camp in Texas.
17:20At Dilley, this little girl, this previously healthy little girl,
17:23contracted COVID and RSV and pneumonia.
17:27She was eventually rushed to a children's hospital in life-threatening respiratory distress.
17:32She was hospitalized at Methodist Children's Hospital in San Antonio for 10 days,
17:36much of that time on oxygen.
17:39But then ICE demanded that she be sent back to Dilley from the hospital.
17:44They sent her back to the prison camp and then would not let her have the medication
17:50she was discharged with from the hospital.
17:54Homeland Security is denying that she ever received anything but the best medical care.
17:58But this all comes from a court case brought on her behalf by the Immigrant Rights Clinic
18:02at Columbia Law School, a law school immigrant rights clinic,
18:06which filed the petition seeking her release and indeed succeeded in getting her released on Friday.
18:14That's exactly the kind of work that is exactly the kind of legal work that firms like Paul Weiss
18:21and other big law firms used to help with all over the country, right?
18:25For which there is a lot more need right now than there was even one year ago when Paul Weiss
18:29and all those other law firms instead started promising to not do anything to upset or oppose Trump
18:34and to instead donate their legal services to things Trump likes.
18:39The fact that the Dilley prison camp has nearly tripled in size since October is something that we know
18:45thanks to DetentionReports.com, which is an online database of all the known Trump immigrant prisons in the United States.
18:55In addition to DetentionReports.com, there's also another online tracker developed by a group called Project Saltbox.
19:02They show all the sites all over the country where Trump is trying to buy warehouse sites to use to
19:08build his new immigrant prison camps.
19:10We're going to be talking with one of the people behind this new online tracker for the new Trump prison
19:16camps in just a moment.
19:17It's a really useful thing.
19:20But again, if you're looking for ways to punch your moral dance card at the moment,
19:25if you're, say, Paul Weiss with your radioactive Epstein Files chairman stuffed into the back office where you hope no
19:32one notices him,
19:33where your firm is literally described now as the face of capitulation, right?
19:38When you're trying to avoid a picture of your firm appearing in the history books and the chapters on the
19:44shameful cowardice
19:45of the once vaunted and powerful American legal profession in the face of the tiniest nudge from a tinpot dictator,
19:53if you are Paul Weiss or you're another firm that's in that boat,
19:58you have the opportunity to have a very big and very important 2026.
20:03Because the very contingent, as yet undecided fight over whether or not America is going to let Donald Trump
20:09build a huge new constellation of black site prison camps in this country,
20:13That is a fight that needs legal firepower, that needs pro bono lawyers donating their time.
20:23There's representing people who are already in the existing camps,
20:28a record number of people being held right now in what we know are atrocious conditions.
20:33There's also representing people with habeas corpus petitions, right?
20:38Non-lawyers hearing that phrase don't know what I'm talking about,
20:41but lawyers instantly know what that is, right?
20:45The administration defying court orders was supposed to be such a bright red line
20:49for the vaunted American legal profession.
20:51Well, where is the administration defying court orders every day?
20:55Courts all over the country, from Minneapolis to Massachusetts,
20:59say that federal court orders are being violated every day, over and over and over again,
21:04specifically when it comes to the Trump administration arresting people
21:08and locking them up indefinitely without any chance to go to court to be heard.
21:13Which, of course, is the basis of the writ of habeas corpus.
21:18They're not supposed to be able to lock you up in prison without putting your case before a court.
21:23In Massachusetts, one federal judge last week went so far as to order the Trump administration
21:28to advise every single person they arrested and locked up to advise them in writing and in multiple languages
21:33that every single person the Trump administration is locking up
21:37has the right to petition a federal court to review their case and potentially set them free.
21:44The judge ordered that the Trump administration needs to give every single person they lock up
21:50written notice of their right to a habeas corpus petition in a federal court.
21:55And then she ordered that within three hours of anybody being given that notice,
22:00they need to be given access to a telephone, quote, to call an attorney.
22:05Whereupon, perhaps, they could call Paul Weiss.
22:10Perhaps big law, which has a lot to make up for now,
22:14perhaps big law could dig down deep and try to find its soul somewhere amid the tidal wave
22:20of habeas corpus petitions that ought to be filed by all these thousands of men, women and children.
22:26Trump is arresting all over the country and locking up literally without due process,
22:31without any access to the courts.
22:32And why is he doing that?
22:34Well, he's doing it in part to create an artificial need for tons more space in Trump prison camps,
22:41which they are trying to build in huge numbers right now.
22:47Now, where else could big law help?
22:49Big law could also help in the fight to stop Trump building new prison camps.
22:55Put that Project Saltbox tracker back up there.
22:59You see at the very top there, you see the map there, and we'll get into that in a minute.
23:02But you see at the top, essentially the bottom line,
23:06seven warehouses that ICE has bought so far to become Trump prison camps.
23:10Seven bought so far. Five warehouses where the sale has been blocked by local opposition.
23:16Eleven warehouses where it's up in the air.
23:19They are trying to buy warehouses to turn into big Trump prison camps.
23:24But the fight is still underway, still contingent, still yet to be determined.
23:28Hey, American big law, you looking for your lost reputation?
23:32Because right now the future size of Donald Trump's archipelago of massive black site prison camps
23:37is being determined by fights in tiny little towns, by individual local officials,
23:43by angry local residents, and tiny no-resource local activist groups
23:47that are trying one by one to stop the next Trump prison camp from being built in their town.
23:54And they could use some help.
23:57And they're doing a good job fighting it in all sorts of ways,
24:00and it's the least partisan thing you can possibly imagine.
24:02I mean, one proposed Trump prison camp in Bahalia, Mississippi appears to be canceled now
24:07after local protests, and after Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker expressed his
24:13objections to it.
24:14One proposed Trump prison camp in Oklahoma City appears to be canceled now after local protests,
24:19and after local officials leaned on the private company that was going to sell that warehouse
24:24there to ICE, that they ought not do that.
24:27In Surprise, Arizona, after a Rockefeller Group warehouse was bought by ICE,
24:31there's been a ton of local protests there.
24:33Even MAGA Republican Congressman Paul Gosar has been among those,
24:37expressing concerns about that warehouse becoming a prison camp in his home state.
24:41In Chester, New York, the fight is on over a warehouse owned by an entity associated with Carl Icahn.
24:47Locals are protesting there, including tonight.
24:51Local officials say the local sewer system, among other things,
24:54cannot handle anything like the size of that prison camp that Trump wants to put there in New York.
25:00In San Antonio, Texas, after Oakmont Industrial Group reportedly sold its warehouse to ICE,
25:05among the local Texas officials expressing their outrage and their determined opposition is the
25:10top elected official in Bexar County, Texas, Judge Peter Sakai, whose family was incarcerated in
25:16prison camps during World War II for the crime of being Japanese-American.
25:22He says that is what led him to public service.
25:25He says he is absolutely opposed to there being a new ICE prison camp in Bexar County in San Antonio.
25:31In El Paso, Texas, the nonpartisan city council there unanimously approved an action plan to try to find a legal
25:37way
25:37to block another one of Trump's planned prison camps in Clint, Texas.
25:43Plenty of local opposition.
25:45Plenty of protests.
25:46Plenty of bipartisan outrage.
25:49And you know what they could use?
25:50They could use some big-time legal firepower on their side.
25:55In Orlando, Florida, it's a firm called HLI Partners that's being pressured for potentially
26:01brokering a sale to ICE for a prison camp in Orlando.
26:04In New Hampshire, a member of Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte's cabinet resigned today in scandal
26:10after Governor Ayotte, again, a Republican, said she didn't know that ICE was planning on building
26:15one of these prison camps in Merrimack, New Hampshire.
26:17And this cabinet official's agency apparently did know, but nobody told the governor, and
26:22so now that cabinet official is out.
26:23In Social Circle, Georgia, even a Republican congressman like Mike Collins is saying no to
26:29a prison camp in Social Circle that would potentially triple the local population there.
26:33That's a town of 5,000 people.
26:35They want a Trump prison camp there that would hold up to 10,000 people.
26:39We're going to talk with Democratic U.S. Senator John Ossoff about that and more in just a few minutes.
26:46Whether it is the Epstein moral disaster or the capitulating to a would-be dictator moral disaster
26:56or any of the other moral disasters of 2025, of the first year of Donald Trump being back in office.
27:04This year, 2026, the second year of Trump being back in office, shows that his approval has never
27:10been lower.
27:10His party's electoral prospects have never been more dismal.
27:13The clarity with which the country views him and his administration and his intentions
27:17has never been more clear.
27:20Trump has never been less powerful.
27:22The agenda he's pursuing has never been more evident and more unpopular.
27:26What this means, if you're a wuss, what this means, if you were wrong in 2025, in the first
27:32year of Donald Trump being back in office, well, it means that 2026 is good news for you.
27:402026 is the easiest chance you'll ever have to rectify what you did wrong, to get on the
27:44right side of this thing.
27:46Now or never.
27:52They're called Project Salt Box.
27:54They're based in Baltimore, Maryland, and their name comes from the bright yellow wooden
27:57boxes on street corners around Baltimore, as seen here on the charming Instagram account
28:03Baltimore Salt Box.
28:04They're boxes of road salt for people in Baltimore to use during the winter to melt the ice from
28:10their streets and sidewalks, salt boxes, used to clear ice.
28:16Project Salt Box is also focused on ice, as in Trump's immigration agents.
28:22Project Salt Box has been tracking the government's buying spree for its new archipelago of huge
28:27legal black site immigration prisons all over America.
28:33As I mentioned in the previous segment, you can see in plain language right there at the
28:36top, in red, warehouses bought by ice, seven.
28:39In green, warehouses canceled by local opposition.
28:43In orange, the fight, warehouses for sale, 11.
28:48Project Salt Box has all those sites and their status labeled on an interactive map.
28:53You can zoom in on any state, any part of the country, hover over any site to see the details.
28:58So for instance, you can zoom in on the great state of Georgia.
29:00If you hover over this one red dot, it tells you a warehouse in Social Circle, Georgia,
29:05has been bought by ice with plans to imprison 8,500 people there.
29:10That's more than twice the size of the largest federal prison in the United States today.
29:14If you move your cursor over to the yellow dot, that's a warehouse in Flowery Branch, Georgia.
29:19The Trump administration wants to lock up an additional 1,500 people there,
29:23but they haven't yet managed to buy that warehouse there.
29:26That one is still for lease.
29:28You can also zoom in on Virginia and hover over that green dot there,
29:32which will tell you that a warehouse sale in Ashland, Virginia, that sale was canceled
29:37when the owner decided not to sell to ICE after getting enormous pressure from locals and others to cancel that
29:44deal.
29:45So much of the best work being done on this is being done by independent researchers and citizen journalists.
29:51There's that man in Minneapolis who's single-handedly tracking daily deportation flights from the Minneapolis airport.
29:59There's the folks at DetentionReports.com, which has a really useful interactive map of hundreds of existing immigration prisons
30:07where ICE is holding people.
30:09And there's Project Saltboxes, ICE warehouse purchase tracker,
30:14keeping tabs specifically on new sites the Trump administration is buying or trying to buy.
30:20It's a map, in effect, of the moral future of this country
30:24and the question of whether or not Donald Trump will have a network of prison camps,
30:28some of the calling them concentration camps, to do what he wants to for the rest of his term.
30:33Joining us now is Mike Riston.
30:35He is co-founder of Project Saltbox.
30:37Mr. Riston, thank you so much for being here.
30:38I really appreciate it.
30:39Thanks, Rachel. Appreciate it.
30:40Did I get anything wrong in the way that I described that?
30:42No, that's all pretty much as we understand it, for sure.
30:44I got to say, we've been doing a lot of work, just the staff of the show and me putting
30:49stuff together,
30:50trying to get our arms around this Trump prison camp idea, how big an operation it is.
30:55They're being very quiet about it.
30:57It's just sort of popping up all over the country.
30:59We felt a lot of gratitude when we discovered that you had done a lot of the work already that
31:04we were trying.
31:05How hard has it been to get this information?
31:08So up till now, it's been pretty easy.
31:10A lot of this information has just been existing in the public domain on websites like USA Spending or SAM
31:15.gov,
31:16which are sort of the federal government's clearinghouses for contracts and bid solicitations.
31:22And so very easy to find that information there.
31:24Recently, it's become a little more difficult as Homeland Security has begun using Department of Defense contracts
31:32under a program called Wexmactitis, the worldwide expeditionary multi-award contract,
31:37Territorial Integrity of the United States.
31:39It's a mouthful.
31:41And essentially, it's just a way for ICE to use DOD contracts to make purchases specifically for things like detention
31:47warehouses
31:47and soft-sided camps like Camp East Montana.
31:50Would they be, I don't know if you can tell, if they're moving to Defense Department contracting protocols and resources,
32:00are they doing that in order to shield those contracts from the public, or are they doing that because that
32:08affords them access to sites they wouldn't otherwise have?
32:10I actually think it has a lot to do with the latter.
32:13It allows them to access contracts, contract vehicles and vendors that are pre-vetted by the Department of Defense by
32:19a command in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, the Navy Supply Command,
32:23which is responsible for providing vendors for worldwide contingencies.
32:27Now, the United States is considered a worldwide contingency area of responsibility.
32:32So, by having these contractors available to the Department of Homeland Security, they can access pre-vetted contractors,
32:40and they don't have to publicly bid for the lowest bidder as would normally happen in a procurement cycle.
32:47They can just tap into what the DOD already has and use that pool of resources to build out their
32:53sites.
32:53The war comes home.
32:56I know you served 20 years in the U.S. Air Force.
32:58I did, yes.
33:00You came out of that, it's clear, with some particular skills that have turned out to serve you very well
33:04in this contract.
33:05Can you talk a little bit about just how you got into this work tracking these warehouse purchases?
33:09Absolutely, yeah.
33:10So, I was sitting home one day, and I was on social media in our local Baltimore subreddit,
33:16and someone had posted a thread asking for help, kind of discerning some contracts that they had found.
33:21Turned out to be another Army veteran that had recently gotten out of the military
33:26and was trying to find something constructive to do to understand what was happening here in the United States with
33:33the ICE expansion.
33:34This would have been September of last year.
33:37And just coming from that military background, knowing contracting is the way that all of these things happen,
33:42that underneath every operation or underneath every contingency,
33:46there are hundreds of contracts and many millions of dollars' worth of contract support that makes them happen.
33:51So we thought, or they thought, by looking at these contracts,
33:54we might get a better understanding of whether or not a metro surge, midway blitz-style operation might be coming
34:01to Baltimore.
34:02And I was skeptical.
34:03I did not believe that the contracts would tell us that much.
34:07She sent us, you know, she sent me a list of about 20 contracts to look through,
34:11and Saturday night became Monday morning, and what we found were some pretty alarming trends, you know.
34:18Since the passing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the authorization of, you know,
34:22$69, $75 billion worth of money for DHS,
34:26ICE was buying things in our own backyard, such as meals ready to eat for six months' worth of detention,
34:32in Baltimore, Maryland.
34:33Our field office is on the sixth floor of a building downtown that can maybe hold 50 people.
34:39We didn't understand the math behind why they would need that much resourcing.
34:44Trucks and mobile cell site simulators, which is a truck that they can drive around and turn on
34:48and intercept cell signals to locate persons of interest.
34:51That's military technology.
34:53I mean, law enforcement uses it, too, but its roots are in military technology.
34:56And so we started pouring through these contracts, and, you know, a group of two became a much larger group,
35:01and we have a diverse background.
35:02We have contract federal procurement specialists that are on our team.
35:06We have lawyers.
35:07We have dog walkers.
35:08We have, you know, everybody from every walk of life that can bring their own unique set of skills into
35:13the mix
35:15and contribute in some way to either make the data meaningful
35:17or help other people that don't understand the data understand it better,
35:21to bring it down to a level that everyone can understand.
35:24Well, at MSNOW, we're going to post a link to what you guys have posted at Project Saltbox, your database.
35:30I know it's a lot of material there,
35:33but people all over the country are wondering whether or not one of these prison camps is coming to their
35:37state,
35:37to their community, and what they can do to try to oppose it.
35:42And the best resource that I have found anywhere, in addition to local reporting on these things,
35:48in some cases, which has been very, very good, is this database that you've created at Project Saltbox.
35:52It's a real contribution.
35:54It's really constructive.
35:56Thanks.
35:57All right.
35:57Mike Riston and the group is called Project Saltbox.
35:59At our website at MSNOW, we will post a link to that database.
36:03You can find out about these potential locations and the contracts involved in setting up these camps,
36:09which may be near you.
36:11All right.
36:11More news ahead.
36:12Stay with us.
36:17When the Trump administration sent Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
36:21to raid Georgia's election offices and take ballots from Fulton County,
36:27I don't exactly know what the Trump administration thought was going to happen,
36:30but I doubt they were expecting this.
36:34And like a scene out of some banana republic, Tulsi Gabbard,
36:41the country's spy chief, comes to Fulton County, Georgia,
36:45to oversee the seizure of ballots.
36:54Your ballots.
37:00They came to the doorstep of John Lewis's congressional district.
37:27And as a result, we are going to mobilize the biggest and most unstoppable turnout in state history.
37:36Are you ready to vote, Atlanta?
37:41Georgia, U.S. Senator John Ossoff speaking before a crowd of voters in Atlanta this weekend.
37:47And those voters clearly fired up about the Trump administration raiding their election offices,
37:52seizing like 700 boxes of ballots, boxes and boxes of real original ballots that were removed
37:59with no documented chain of custody, meaning who knows what they're going to do to them or how we'll ever
38:05know.
38:06Yesterday, a federal judge ordered that the Trump administration has to release the documents it used in court
38:12to justify its raid on that Georgia election facility.
38:16Those documents are ordered to be released tomorrow, which should make for a fascinating news day.
38:22Ahead of that deadline, ProPublica has revealed that lawyers for the Trump administration,
38:27ahead of this raid, apparently were interviewing, among others,
38:30a crank conspiracy theorist who has repeatedly tried and failed to prove that the 2020 election in Fulton County was
38:38fraudulent.
38:38He also reportedly has his own criminal record after he, quote,
38:43pled guilty to a misdemeanor voyeurism charge and was subsequently ordered by a jury to pay $3.25 million in
38:49damages
38:50after secretly filming guests in his own home bathroom.
38:56For his part, the man told ProPublica that that matter had no bearing on his election-related research.
39:02Quote, that has nothing to do with this, he said.
39:05That was 20 years ago.
39:07All right, then.
39:08So the Trump administration has until tomorrow to release the basis for their search warrant of that Georgia election center
39:15amid reporting that they relied on cuckoo-for-cocoa-puff sources in terms of their theories justifying the search.
39:24ProPublica reports that at least part of the basis for that search may have come from an election denier
39:28who once pled guilty to secretly filming people in his own home bathroom.
39:33As if Georgia voters didn't have enough to be outraged about right now,
39:36Georgia Senator John Ossoff joins us live here next.
39:40Stay with us.
39:44Paul C. said the president asked her to go, which means the president is personally managing federal raids on election
39:53sites in battleground states,
39:55all in service of his obsession with overturning the 2020 election and laying the groundwork for whatever they're plotting this
40:03year.
40:04Joining us now is Democratic U.S. Senator John Ossoff.
40:07He's on the Intelligence Committee in the Senate.
40:09He's also running for re-election this year in the great state of Georgia.
40:12Senator, it's nice to see you.
40:13Thank you for being here.
40:14Hey, Rachel.
40:15How does Georgia feel about that raid on the Fulton County Election Office?
40:19As I mentioned in the speech, you know, this apparent abuse of federal law enforcement power to indulge the president's
40:28obsession with overturning the 2020 election
40:32and to lay the groundwork for whatever mischief they're planning in a few months,
40:36I think is obviously deeply disturbing, deeply chilling, deeply menacing, and also a huge political mistake for this administration.
40:45Because in Georgia, where now for the second time in six years, Georgia voters have the weight of the republic's
40:54future on our shoulders,
40:56we are just that much more determined to do our part to right the ship.
41:02This election is pivotal.
41:04If we do not restore checks and balances in these midterm elections, we will not recognize our republic at the
41:11end of this presidential term.
41:13We may lose our republic.
41:16And that is why I'm asking people to help me in this, the most pivotal United States Senate election in
41:21the country,
41:22to log on to electjohn.com, electjohn.com.
41:26This is something you can do right now to help us fight back and to help us defend voting rights
41:31in Georgia that are under attack.
41:32Fulton County officials are suing, trying to block what the Trump administration is doing here.
41:38We are expecting a court to order the Trump administration tomorrow to release the background information
41:44that they gave the court effectively to allow this search to be done in the first place.
41:48What are you expecting from those from those documents?
41:54Remains to be seen.
41:55There's been reporting indicating they may have been relying upon debunked conspiracy theories.
42:01We'll find out tomorrow.
42:02I think the bottom line is this.
42:04We would be naive not to expect dirty tricks.
42:10This man tried to steal the presidency when he lost it the first time.
42:15And that's why we are going to mount an unprecedented effort to get out the vote and to defend the
42:21voting rights.
42:22But in Georgia and in every major battleground state and key congressional district,
42:28the best insurance against dirty tricks is landslide margins of victory.
42:33So I hope everybody out there across the nation is feeling the passion that we have to feel right now
42:40to do our part at this pivotal moment in American history
42:43and power a landslide victory in these midterm elections
42:47and rebuke these unprecedented abuses of power.
42:52Senator John Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia, sir.
42:54I know this is a very, very busy time for you.
42:56Thank you for your time tonight.
42:57Thank you for being here.
42:58Thank you, Rachel.
42:59All right.
43:00Stay with us.
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